Paula Vennells is history but now at the Post Office Inquiry is Fujitsu distinguished engineer Gareth Jenkins - thread 4

[nauticant]

A continuation of this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5094266-paula-vennells-was-done-the-other-week-the-post-office-inquiry-is-now-questioning-associates-and-others-thread-3

When the hearings are going on, live-streaming can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/featured

All of the previous hearings can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/videos

I do too. Partly it's that her accent means she can ramp up her incredulity to near-impossible levels.

Quite! Necessarily in this case.

He's getting a bit bolshy now.

Did the plan for mutualisation make you a little incurious?

I know barristers like theatricality but Mr Henry really looks like he'd like the storm over to Callard and shake the answers out of him.

An email indicating behind the scenes manoeuvrings against Baroness Neville-Rolfe by Post Office and ShEx in cooperation. She'll have many things to say when she gives evidence.

Yes, ministers have some power, but not necessarily as much as you might think. If you want to see how much power ministers have, watch Yes, Minister. It is a sitcom, but many of the episodes are based on things that actually happened.

Old school! My dad used to watch that 😂

So did mine! He was a junior Humphrey - a couple of rungs below - and he loved it.

I was trying to remember from Kay Linnells' evidence. She was very subtle, but I got the impression that she didn't rate Callard at all, but didn't mind Cooper - may be thought he was better than that.

Does that ring a bell with anyone else?

Late start for a Monday witness which isn't normally a sitting day:

Monday 15 July Start time: 12pm Sir Stephen Lovegrove - former Shareholder Executive Official

In April 2004, he joined the Shareholder Executive, becoming acting Chief Executive in June 2007 and Chief Executive in April 2008.

Stephen spent 9 years at the Shareholder Executive, now UK Government Investments, where he was appointed Chief Executive in June 2007.

Chief Executive, Shareholder Executive
2007 to 2013

I'm not expecting much. I think he'll say he kind of floated above everything, people didn't tell him what was going on, and he was able to get out around the time the shit was hitting the fan.

Highlights:
Sir Wyn Williams announced at the start some details about what would be happening in Phase 7.
Lovegrove is clearly intelligent, seems to have more grip than most of the witnesses on the "Post Office side", and so far has shown good recall.
Royal Mail resisted oversight by its single shareholder, and was obstructive from time to time to make a point, and this behaviour ended up being mirrored by Post Office. For example, resistance to ShEx placing a NED on the board of Post Office.

@nauticant quiet over here today!

im Struggling through it x

Overall my initial kind of floated above everything, people didn't tell him what was going on was about right. With that he was able to admit to some things that went wrong because of what others did because he'd not be on the hook. There were references to Alice Perkins being very resistant to a ShEx NED on the board of Post Office.

I'm more interested in later in the week:

Tuesday 16 July
Andy Dunks - former IT Security Analyst at Fujitsu Services Ltd

Wednesday 17 July
Ken McCall - former Senior Non-Executive Director of Post Office Ltd
The Rt. Hon. Kelly Tolhurst - former Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Thursday 18 July
Pat McFadden MP and Edward Davey MP and I'm not that bothered.

Friday 19 July
Jo Swinson - former Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs)
Dame Moya Greene - former CEO of Royal Mail Group

Here's the message from Sir Wyn Williams about Phase 7:

He'd melt your heart altogether 😍

I couldn’t watch today - hoping to check in on Friday particularly.

Looking forward to Moyà Green if she gets asked about her messages to Paula Venells 😂

I think Andy Dunks may be an interesting one today.

Andy Dunks already gave evidence back in Phase 3, March 2023, because he was involved in Jo Hamilton, Seema Misra and Lee Castleton cases.
He was also royally bollocked by Judge Fraser in the GLO Bates vs Post Office, for giving misleading evidence.

This is Nick Wallis summary of Andy Dunks evidence back in Phase 3, to refresh your memory
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/why-hasnt-fujitsu-sacked-andy-dunks/

Andy is in a proper pickle, especially as the Inquiry has gathered more documentation since the last time he gave evidence.

Jason Beer is asking the questions. I wonder if he'll start with "the last time you were before the inquiry you told us that..."

He's very nervous

I am 30 mins behind, but if I am understanding this correctly, Andy Dunks is in a real pickle.

Fujitsu and PO came up with a policy of how to extract data from Horizon and how Fujitsu would give evidence in witness statements for criminal/civil cases
They also came up with a template witness statement

But Andy Dunks completely ignored that policy and came up with his own guidance and his own witness statement template
Which, critically, missed all the important legal points from the policy document.

This explains why he is in trouble for giving misleading evidence in the criminal and civil cases.

Mind you, the bosses at Fujitsu are not off the hook. Somebody should have been checking Andy Dunk's witness statements to make sure it was complying with the policy.

The first part of the evidence this morning has been about how, in Fujitsu, the creation of witness statements became a sausage-making machine, with people like Dunks presenting information as things they knew rather than what they'd simply been told by others, with this in the context of other people saying "no, I'm not going to make statements of that nature, when it's outside of my direct knowledge/capabilities".